A Michigan pastor is sleeping outside
in a tent to protest the United Methodist Church's opposition to LGBT
rights.

The Rev. Michael Tupper of Parchment
United Methodist Church near Kalamazoo started his protest on
November 30. He said that he'll continue sleeping in the tent for
175 consecutive nights.

“It's a symbol of how our
denomination, the United Methodist Church, is responding to LGBTQ
persons and pushing them outside the church,” Tupper
said. He added that LGBT persons “are being forced out of our
church and into the cold.”

He's also taken his protest on the
road, pitching his tent in front of United Methodist conference
headquarters in Indianapolis and Madison, Wisconsin.

“My ultimate goal is to raise
awareness of the problems of discrimination and to inspire people to
make a change to allow for LGBTQ persons to be married in our church
and to allow LGBTQ persons to serve as pastors in our church,”
Tupper has said.

The church's official policy states
that homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching.”